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Fiction
-> Published Short Stories | Novel
Short Story
From 'Inside Out'
(Read Review)
After lunch I ask my parents if
I can stay with the young people, and they agree.
We’re all Christians here after all, aren’t
we? Peter is aware of my uninterestedness in the general
proceedings. He leans over and whispers in my ear
to meet him at the entrance to the toilets in five
minutes. He knows I’ll be there. When we come
together again he tells me he’s discovered a
place where we can be alone, if I’d like that.
What the hell, I think, and agree. Anything’s
better than sitting listening to these old fogies.
As we sneak behind the loudspeakers beside the stage,
making sure no one sees us, a preacher starts to lead
the whole congregation in prayer. He makes it up as
he goes along, petitioning the Lord for all kinds
of favours. We climb down under the stage, to a dark
niche where nobody can find us, but we can hear everything
that’s going on. Peter puts his arm around me
and leans over and kisses me, like I knew he would.
Why else was I here? We’ve kissed a few times
before, but this feels more like the real thing. Our
tongues swim around in each other’s mouths,
then he presses his lips to my eyelids one after the
other, then pecks the tip of my nose, then nibbles
my earlobes, then back to my mouth. He starts to undo
the buttons of my blouse, delicately and skilfully,
and then feels my breasts, all perfume, first outside
my bra, then he reaches back and undoes the strap,
and drags his fingertips over my nipples. He’s
done this before. But then, so have I. It’s
better this time, though. Just then the preacher starts
shouting about God loving the world and all His people,
and how we must love Him back in return. I feel him
stroking my thighs under my skirt, and I adjust my
position so he can get at me more easily. I hear the
crowd outside start to speak in tongues, and Peter
stretches his hands up and slips his fingers inside
the elastic of my knickers and slides them down my
legs. Then he leans down and starts licking me down
there, and it’s the first time I’ve had
this and it feels so good. The preacher thanks the
Lord for bestowing the gift of tongues. So do I.
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Just as I’m beginning to come
Peter stops, and so does the preacher, to be replaced
by a new speaker, a pastor from a church in Alabama,
who is going to talk on what is billed as ‘the
most important social issue of our day’. What
could that be? Peter surfaces for air and kisses my
lips again, and produces a piece of rubber which he
places over himself, and then I feel him slowly come
inside me.
“Today, millions of innocent babies are sacrificed,
by official sanction. It is done in the name of secular
humanism’s causes celebre: ‘the right of
a woman to her own body’, ‘every child should
be wanted’, ‘the viability of the foetus’,
or ‘the right to choose’.”
He keeps kissing my face, and moves in and out leisurely,
and I pick up from where I left off before.
“Pro-abortionists play with words. Terms like
‘pre-viable embryo’, a classic example,
are common now when abortionists are referring to unborn
babies. Through semantics, they are attempting to dehumanise
the tiny life. Common terms include ‘embryo’,
‘tissue’, ‘clump of cells’,
‘it’ and ‘product of conception’.”
This is better than my finger, better than other fingers,
much much better than the boy at the beach.
“Such issues as pro-choice, right of a woman to
her own body, viability, wantedness, etcetera, are man-made
arenas of discussion. Each of these issues has been
conceived in our culture’s God-ignoring, humanistic
mindset, and then presented to us as if they were the
proper points for the public debate. Let us deeply realise
that these issues were not birthed from the Scriptures
by those who revere the Word of God and who are committed
to a ‘sanctity of life’ ethic. No, they
were invented pure and simple by those who espouse secularism,
by those whose underlying ethic is the utilitarian ‘quality
of life’. But the fundamental Biblical issue in
abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. The murder
of these unborn babies is today’s Slaughter of
the Holy Innocents. And it is time for God-fearing people
of all religious backgrounds to call the debate exclusively
to that, and insist it stay there.”
He’s making me feel wonderful, and it’s
wonderful to know that he’s feeling it too.
“As to the right of a woman to her own body, the
Word of God would emphasise that we are created in the
image of God and that our life, our bodies, are gifts
from Him. Our first consideration is not our rights;
it is the responsible use and behaviour of our bodies.
Such a responsibility is first concerned that our bodies
bring glory to God. It’s a responsibility, for
instance, that concerns itself with wholesome and beautiful
attitudes toward sexual love. It accepts responsibility
for God-given sexuality and fertility.”
I feel like screaming out with pleasure I’m getting
so near to the moment, but I restrain myself in case
someone hears me and we’re discovered.
“Look at television and the movies. Where is God’s
hand in the programming and entertainment? Sexual promiscuity,
homosexuality, adultery, and all of God’s prohibitions
are flaunted and touted as socially acceptable on television
and in films. Violence plays an important part in these
media, violence bred of an existential mindset, another
tentacle of secular humanism. What we see on our televisions
and at the theatre are the reflections of those executives
and artists in control of the majority of the visual
media. It is a reflection of their anti-God, secular
worldview, a view that holds that there is no God and
no absolutes, only the self.”
I’m just there, it’s terrific, his name
is Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, a
church made up of sex and love.
“The prevailing idolatry of our age is secular
humanism, and it contains all the elements of idolatry.
As is usually the case, society confuses law with morality.
Anything legal is assumed to be moral. This type of
thinking is reasonable if there is no God, as secular
humanists believe. Without God, man is the measure of
all things, and man’s laws are his only moral
determinants. But man is not truly the measure of all
things. God is. And God’s laws are absolutes which
cannot be legislated away.”
Yes I’m just there yes I’m there Yes.
First published in the anthology Phoenix: Irish
Short Stories 1998, edited by David Marcus, published
by Phoenix House.
Review
‘Inside Out’, in the anthology Phoenix:
Short Stories 1998
From ‘Mixing sex with death’ by James Urquhart,
The Times, Thursday, July 30, 1998
But supremely entertaining is Desmond
Traynor’s 'Inside Out', revisiting youthful disaffection
with wry good humour. Milly and Peter, bored by the
Royal Dublin Society Christina Convention that their
parents have dragged them to, creep under the rostra
and make passionate love, climaxing as the guest preacher
bellows and snorts on the ills of abortion, promiscuity
and that enemy within, feminism. The irony is there
for the taking.
From ‘Encouraging the hardy annuals’
by Oonagh Shiel, The Irish Times, Saturday,
August 8, 1998
'Inside Out', by Desmond Traynor, is
a fine story exploring the transgressions of a young
girl in a strict Christian community. He is expert at
writing of her illicit joy even as the sermon of an
American preacher is broadcast around the RDS. Not only
does Traynor locate the girl’s nascent sexuality,
but offers a searing critique of her religion and the
effect of it on her family and, ultimately, on her mother,
with her swelling, pregnant body.
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